Ariane’s four handmaids were cooing and aahing over her and attempting to tidy her hair and prepare a quiet corner where she might change into a clean new dress, of which they had a store borne by patient slaves. That made me realize that the arrivals did have slaves with them.
I said to Lobur the Dagger, “How did you fare with the Fliktitors?”
He didn’t know what I was talking about.
It turned out that Nedfar’s party had followed a vastly different route from ours. Once they had branched off, the fortunes of the Moder had treated them as harshly, but had spared some of their slaves. They had lost Strom Phrutius.
“He is now being ingested in the guts of some half-invisible creature we could only see in the dark. As soon as there was light he incontinently disappeared.”
“San Orien ment
